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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

An Asian-inspired light dinner for a refreshing end to the day...

Refreshing, crunchy and light - these are the first words that come to my mind when I think about tonight's dinner of this colorful Asian Chicken Slaw. If you already have cooked chicken on hand or if you wanted to run out and buy a rotisserie chicken from the market to shred yourself, this dinner requires no cooking and minimal prep work.

The tender shredded chicken, crunchy bright green celery, fresh sugar snap peas, red bell peppers and chopped red onions are tossed with crisp water chestnuts and broccoli slaw to create the filling base of the recipe. The broccoli slaw itself is a mixture of raw shredded broccoli, red cabbage, carrots and cauliflower - if you don't have access to this mix, you could replaced it with a packaged angel hair slaw. Coating this slaw is a very tangy dressing of cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, granulated sugar to balance the flavors, soy sauce, a pinch of garlic powder and just enough sesame oil to add an aromatic and robust burst of sesame. Toasted sliced almonds tossed on top add a pleasant nutty crunch along with a smattering of black sesame seeds to bring a contrast of color with a more earthy flavor than regular sesame seeds.